Gov. Mark Gordon

JACKSON — Just hours after the Wyoming Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday morning that two abortion bans passed by the Wyoming Legislature in 2023 are unconstitutional, Republican state leaders vowed to take action in coming weeks.

Advocates of abortion access, meanwhile, celebrated the win.

“I could not be happier and more thrilled for the women in our state,” said Dr. Giovannina Anthony, a Jackson obstetrician involved in three of the major abortion cases since 2022.

Supreme Court justices decided 4-1 to strike down the Life is a Human Right Act and a medical abortion ban, after considering whether the laws “unjustifiably limit a woman’s constitutional right to make her own health care decisions.” 

Justice Kari Jo Gray was the lone justice who voted to uphold the laws.

The court determined the two laws did “unreasonably and unnecessarily” infringe upon health care rights enshrined by Wyoming voters in 2012.

That year, the Wyoming Legislature passed an amendment to the state constitution — Article 1, section 38 — that “guarantees each competent adult ‘the right to make his or her own health care decisions.’”

The amendment was crafted, at the time, as an attempt to resist federal mandates from the Affordable Care Act, also known as “Obamacare.” More than three-fourths of voters in the state backed it.

“Although we recognize the State’s interest in protecting the life that an abortion would end, we conclude the State did not meet its burden of justifying the abortion statutes’ restrictions on a woman’s right to make her own health care decisions, as is expressly protected by the Wyoming Constitution,” Chief Justice Lynne J. Boomgaarden wrote in the 67-page opinion.

The decision comes nearly nine months after justices heard oral arguments and close to three years after six women, including health care providers and abortion advocates, filed a lawsuit in Teton County District Court against the state. 

Ninth District Court Judge Melissa Owens struck down the two laws, but the decision was quickly appealed to the Wyoming Supreme Court.

Anthony and other plaintiffs argued that the abortion restriction laws violated the Wyoming Constitution. The 2012 amendment also directs the State of Wyoming, of which the judicial branch is a part, “to preserve these rights from undue governmental infringement.”

Anthony said the language was “plain” and “clear” in its protections and provided for an “inescapable conclusion.” She expects the ruling will influence the most recent abortion lawsuit in Natrona County District Court, which began after lawmakers passed additional abortion restrictions in the 2025 session.

She said as an obstetrician, she views pregnancy management on the entire spectrum as health care.

Democrats in Wyoming agreed.

“Today’s ruling confirms what was clear from the start: The abortion bans violate the Wyoming Constitution,” Rep. Mike Yin, D-Jackson, said in a statement. “All five justices recognized that deciding whether to continue or terminate a pregnancy is a health care decision, and the majority correctly struck these laws down. The Wyoming Democratic Caucus will keep standing up for the constitution and the rights of every Wyomingite and our communities.”

All of the Supreme Court justices recognized that the article of the constitution in question was created to address people’s frustrations about health insurance and Obamacare, not necessarily abortion. 

Still, the majority said they couldn’t decide legislators’ specific intent because the language isn’t specific to Obamacare. Instead, the justices said lawmakers could ask voters to consider revising the constitution.

“The Court recognized it cannot add words to the Wyoming Constitution, that’s not its job,” according to the opinion summary. “But lawmakers could ask Wyoming voters to consider a constitutional amendment that would more clearly address this issue.”

Anthony expects the Legislature to try to take this route or to pass other laws that don’t outright ban abortion, just restrict it.

“The Legislature will continue to get creative,” she said.

Call to action

Gov. Mark Gordon expressed his deep disappointment that the two abortion laws he signed in 2023 could not take effect, and he immediately called for legislative action in the form of a constitutional amendment.

If one were passed during the upcoming legislative session that begins Feb. 9, voters would see it on the ballot in November 2026. Gordon said in a press release that he previously urged lawmakers to “take this important moral issue before the people of Wyoming to make the final decision and overcome any potential constitutional concerns.”

He said it was a “straightforward and constitutionally-sound path.”

“This ruling is profoundly unfortunate and sadly only serves to prolong the ultimate and proper resolution of this issue,” Gordon said in a statement. “This ruling may settle, for now, a legal question, but it does not settle the moral one, nor does it reflect where many Wyoming citizens stand, including myself.”

He also asked the Attorney General’s Office to file a petition for a “rehearing,” according to a press release sent Tuesday afternoon. The Attorney General’s office has agreed and will file that petition within the 15 days allowed.

A rehearing is “a subsequent hearing based on the motion or appeal of one of the parties to a lawsuit, petition or criminal prosecution,” according to Cornell Law. “Rehearings are usually requested due to newly discovered evidence, an unfortunate and possibly unintended result of the original order, a change of circumstance or a claim that the judge or agency simply erred in their orders from the original hearing.”

A dark day

Republican leaders and pro-life organizations across the state and nation mourned the decision.

“Today marks a dark day in Wyoming history,” the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, representing a majority in the House of Representatives, said in a statement. “After decades of liberal leadership in the governor’s office, the State Supreme Court has been filled with jurists who reject biology and human dignity.”

The statement called the ruling a “stain on Wyoming’s judicial branch.”

Rep. Rachel Rodriguez-Williams, R-Cody, chair of the caucus, didn’t respond to a request for comment on the abortion decision. She was the main sponsor of the Life is A Human Right Act in 2023.

House Speaker Chip Neiman, R-Hulett, a member of the Freedom Caucus, and Senate President Bo Biteman, R-Ranchester, told Wyoming media outlets they planned to bring forward a constitutional amendment in the upcoming budget session. Neiman also didn’t respond to a request for comment before press time.

Other Republicans were on board.

Sen. Tim Salazar, R-Riverton, sponsored the chemical abortion ban impacted by the Supreme Court decision. It was the first of its kind in the nation, as it was an explicit ban on abortion pills. Now, he said he already has his own bill drafted in reaction to the decision.

“I’m extremely disappointed today in the decision of the Wyoming Supreme Court,” he said. “As the author of Senate File 109 in 2023, the court’s interpretation of our state Constitution is not the same as mine or the majority of the state Legislature.

The state’s greatest responsibility is the protection of human life,” Salazar said. “The state Legislature will respond.”